The Scrapyard is a station building that breaks down ships you no longer need and returns resources and materials in exchange. You unlock it through the research project called Unlock Scrapyard, and it upgrades all the way to level 80. Every upgrade lets you scrap more advanced ship classes and speeds up how fast each ship breaks down. If you cycle through a lot of ships, it earns a spot on your base.
What the Scrapyard does
The Scrapyard has one job. You send in a ship, and it returns a portion of the resources and materials tied to that hull. Higher building levels raise the ceiling on which ship classes you can scrap, so a low-level Scrapyard handles early hulls while a fully upgraded one takes apart your most advanced ships.
The building carries a single buff, Ship Scrapping Speed, which shortens the time each scrap job takes. It starts at 2% at level 1 and climbs with every upgrade. By level 20 the bonus reaches 35%, by level 40 it sits at 90%, and it keeps scaling into the hundreds of percent at the top of the track. All values below are current as of the latest game data.
| Buff | Active from level | Value at anchor levels |
|---|---|---|
| Ship Scrapping Speed | 1 | 2% at L1, 35% at L20, 90% at L40, 190% at L60, 720% at L80 |
How to unlock the Scrapyard
The Scrapyard is not gated behind another building’s level at first. You open it by completing the research project named Unlock Scrapyard in your research tree. Once that research is done, you can place the building at level 1 for 204 Parsteel, and the first upgrade finishes in about a minute.
From level 5 onward, each upgrade asks for a matching level in two other buildings: your Operations and your Shipyard. A level 10 Scrapyard needs Operations 10 and Shipyard 10, a level 20 Scrapyard needs both at 20, and the pattern holds to level 80. In practice the Scrapyard tracks your Shipyard and Operations levels rather than racing ahead of them.
Upgrade costs and build times
Early upgrades are cheap and quick. The bills stay in Parsteel until the hundreds of thousands, then Tritanium joins in, and the top of the track pulls in refined crystals, refined ore, and the Sigma versions of Parsteel and Tritanium. Build times stretch from a single minute at level 1 to years of raw timer at the highest levels, so speedups and research bonuses matter more the deeper you go.
| Level | Cost | Build time | Requires |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 204 Parsteel | 1m | research: Unlock Scrapyard 1 |
| 5 | 1,530 Parsteel | 22m | Operations 5, Shipyard 5 |
| 10 | 15,300 Parsteel, 300 Tritanium | 2h 45m | Operations 10, Shipyard 10 |
| 15 | 76,500 Parsteel, 1,500 Tritanium | 13h 36m | Operations 15, Shipyard 15 |
| 20 | 433,500 Parsteel, 8,500 Tritanium | 1d 22h | Operations 20, Shipyard 20 |
| 30 | 39.78M Parsteel, 780,000 Tritanium | 4d 22h | Operations 30, Shipyard 30 |
| 40 | 8.597B Parsteel, 60.2M Tritanium, 1,000 4★ Common Refined Crystal | 80d 19h | Operations 40, Shipyard 40 |
| 55 | 14.48T Parsteel, 54.6B Tritanium, 23,900 5★ Common Refined Crystal | 2178d 3h | Operations 55, Shipyard 55 |
| 70 | 80.91M Σ-Parsteel, 1.587M Σ-Tritanium, 430,650 6★ Common Refined Ore, 26,950 6★ Rare Refined Crystal | 768d 19h | Operations 70, Shipyard 70 |
| 80 | 39.5B Σ-Parsteel, 193.6M Σ-Tritanium, 296,530 7★ Rare Refined Ore, 329,480 7★ Rare Refined Crystal | 18557d 20h | Operations 80, Shipyard 80 |
Taking one Scrapyard from level 1 to level 80 costs roughly 342.5T Parsteel and 1.381T Tritanium on top of the refined crystals, refined ore, and Sigma resources the last stretch demands. The cumulative build time, before any speedups, runs past 101,000 days.
How the Scrapyard fits your station
For most commanders the Scrapyard is a convenience building rather than a priority. You keep it roughly level with your Shipyard so you can scrap the hulls you actually build, and you push it further only when you have a steady habit of retiring ships for their materials. Each upgrade also adds to your total station power, which helps if you are chasing a power threshold, though the resource return and speed bonus are the real reasons to level it.
Because the requirements march in step with Operations and Shipyard, the Scrapyard rarely blocks anything else on your base. Upgrade it when you have spare resources and a queue of ships to break down, and leave it parked when you do not.
Is the Scrapyard worth upgrading?
Worth it in moderation. The scrapping speed bonus and access to higher ship classes make a well-kept Scrapyard useful for anyone who recycles ships often, and the early levels cost almost nothing. Chasing the final levels is a different question: the Parsteel, Tritanium, and Sigma-resource bills at the top end are enormous and the timers run into the thousands of days. Keep it near your Shipyard level for everyday value, and only sprint to the cap if scrapping is central to how you play.